Recently, with an increase of consumption of silver halide photographic light sensitive materials, the processing amount thereof is increasing so that there have been demands for further shortening of the processing time.
In the field of X-ray photographic light sensitive materials for medical use, rapid processing is demanded due to the increased number of radiographs caused by the increased frequency of diagnoses and radiographing items necessary for prompt diagnoses. Especially, in the field where processing within a short time is required such as arteriography and radiographing during surgical operation, rapid processing is essential.
To meet the environment regulation, low replenishment has been advanced to reduce effluents from processing tanks. Recently, there is spotlighted a replenishing method, in which a solid processing composition is directly supplied to a processing tank of an automatic processor to decrease effectively a replenishing rate
However, when processed at a super high speed and low replenishment rate, it resulted in processing variations and deterioration in image quality. As well recognized in the art, silver chloride is superior in processability as compared to other silver halides and effect of a chloride ion on a developer is also less than that of a bromide or iodide ion, so that exhaustion of a developer due to accumulation of halide ions can be avoided by the use of silver chloride. However, silver chloride cannot achieve high sensitivity.
To meet the demands for the rapid processing, recently, a tabular silver halide grains have been employed. Since the specific surface area of the tabular silver halide grains is large, sensitizing dye can be adsorbed to the grains in a large amount so that spectral sensitivity can be enhanced. Tabular chloride-containing grains with two parallel {100} major faces are disclosed in European Patent 534,395 and U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,264,337 and 5,320,938.
There is such a problem that a photographic material is subject to electrification due to friction with a transport roller of a processor when being processed at a high speed or due to peeling from other photographic materials when being inserted into the processor, thereby causing so-called static mark fog. In particular, a photographic material with the use of a high sensitive tabular grain emulsion is remarkable in such tendency.
Accordingly, it is necessary to provide sufficient antistatic property to photographic material. Various antistatic means have been studied so far, such as an agent for adjusting triboelectric series and organic conductive compounds. However, it was found that these compounds were accumulated in a processing solution, which were attached to a photographic material as sludge at the time when subjected to rapid processing at a low replenishing rate, thereby resulting in insufficient clearness.